About DuPage. Environment.

County Gets In Spirit Of Earth Day

Twenty-five years ago this Saturday, emerging environmentalists celebrated the first Earth Day with dramatic demonstrations in cities from coast to coast.

Chanting "Give Earth a chance," San Francisco activists dumped oil in a reflecting pool at Standard Oil headquarters to protest pollution. Students at a university in Florida "convicted" a car of fouling the atmosphere and swiftly administered punishment with sledgehammers. In Chicago, thousands of people gathered at Daley Plaza for an Earth Day rally followed by litter-collecting forays, and thousands more came for a teach-in at Northwestern University in Evanston.

Even in DuPage County, Earth Day did not pass totally unnoticed. At the College of DuPage, for example, author and environmentalist Rene Dubos gave "An Earth Day Talk."

But for the most part, April 22, 1970, apparently was just another day in the western suburbs.

"DuPage was a toddler back in 1970," said William Borden, executive director of the DuPage Environmental Awareness Center. "It was like the old West; people had just discovered it. There wasn't a whole lot of `environment' here to get up in arms about in 1970."

Paul Mooring, a longtime DuPage environmental activist, recalled only that Illinois Prairie Path volunteers held a trails cleanup in May 1970. But he was hard-pressed to remember anything specifically connected to that first Earth Day.

Only a few years after the initial ecological extravaganzas, Earth Day had largely fallen out of the public consciousness. Gaylord Nelson, the Wisconsin politician generally credited with organizing the first Earth Day, quit spearheading the celebrations by the mid-1970s. By then, Nelson believed, the Earth Day campaign had achieved its goal-America had acquired a strong environmental ethic.

Though the 10th anniversary in 1980 prompted some observances, it wasn't until 1990 that Earth Day once again captured the country's fancy in a big way.

In DuPage County, a 1990 countywide Earth Day bash at the DuPage County government complex in Wheaton featured entertainment by folk musicians and exhibits by local environmental organizations.

At the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, according to Arboretum spokesman Joseph Larkin, thousands of volunteers showed up at sunrise to help launch a giant berm-planting project. (The Arboretum, founded by Joy Morton, son of Arbor Day founder J. Sterling Morton, loyally continues to consider Earth Day simply a global extension of Arbor Day.)

The DuPage Forest Preserve District Earth Day celebration has drawn as many as 3,000 people a year and has become so successful that the Fullersburg Woods parking lot can no longer accommodate the crowds. The Forest Preserve's "Celebrate Earth Day's Birthday" festival will be held 11 a.m. to 5 p.m Sunday at Danada Forest Preserve in Wheaton.

The festival will include tours, a March for Parks walk-a-thon, entertainment, food and children's activities. For information, call 708-790-4900, ext. 281.